“founded in a necessity for an open minded space where people could enjoy themselves“

Niederkofler demostrates his visual communication interests in graphic design, animation and illustration through each night at Soul Juice, as he creates and designs artwork that utilises strong line art illustrations, complemented with a candy-like colour palette. His playful approach with his artwork also examples acid house smileys, pizza slices and bowling bowls. These illustrations references Niederkofler’s creative design approach:

“I like to create work that is funny, bold and somehow weird“

From It’s Nice That:

“Asked to contribute by the founders of the collective, its title was the designer’s first creation with the team and raw sketches of a creative direction followed. “The design we chose is influenced by African LP covers and retro games,” he explains.“The graphic is based on a simple grid, creating a modular system that gives me the freedom to create a range of variations.” Each poster is designed around the centre, “always a main element that connects to the collectives name”. From there,“the colour palette refers to the idea of a vibrant environment. The modules are filled with information and secondary elements like patterns and other symbols”.“

What I can take in for inspiration for my own design work is Niederkofler’s creative design approach of: funny, bold and somehow weird. Taking in this approach certainly results in artwork and designs in a playful and fun output. Especially with the use of typography, colour choice and illustration style.

Southbank Centre receives redesigned visual identity from North

Southbank Centre’s in-house design team has worked with North on redesigning the institution’s visual identity. This whole new refreshed identity undergoes a new logotype, design framework and typographic expression. The new visual identity is applied to all aspects of the branding and identity of the institution, which includes signage to tickets, posters and the website.

North’s founding partner Sean Perkins describes that:

“The new identity clearly, confidently and consistently communicates ‘Southbank Centre’ like a title of a magazine – everything else is the weekly, monthly features and highlights, the content.“

With what Perkins describes of about the new visual identity is clearly exampled with the images below, and certainly with the refreshed logotype. The logotype certainly obtains the look and feel of a magazine, especially with how the content for the institution is regulary updated on a weekly basis. The mixture of the instutition’s content with the logotype and new identity, they certainly work seamlessly together.

At the time of writing, Southbank Centre is undergoing a major renovation, so the timing of a new refreshed visual identity works well. With this major renovation in mind, the institution wanted an “impactful and distinctive” new visual language, as well as being the largest and culture and arts centre in Europe. Therefore, the identity redesign opted in for the colour yellow has the core colour identity. This creates a sense of creativity and optimism to the institution and across the visual identity. This works with what the centre is about, culture and arts. With the logotype used, the institution used the Noe Display font (from type foundry, Schick Toikka: “a modern, high-contrast seriffont“) and customised it to visually reference the centre’s iconic building. Southbank Centre also reasons that the customised Noe Display font creates:

“an ownable, recognisable typographic tone of voice“

North’s Charlie De Grussa also says:

“The logotype design and serif font choice was inspired by Southbank Centre’s brutalist architecture and the original Festival of Britain identity.”

What I can take in for inspiration from this new redesign identity for Southbank Centre, is the combination of colour choice, font choice and the actual content from the centre. The smart choice between colour and font, combined with centre’s content seamlessly works well together, providing a comteporary look and feel, which fulfills the centre’s original motive of being impactful and distinctive. Also, what I can take in for inspiration is the considered use of the centre’s iconic building that influence and referenced into the visual identity. This I can take in to help with ideas and concepts.

H.Y.T. Studio showcases Yes Fam! Great graphic design

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Artist and designer, John Slade, showcases his commerical work through the graphic design studio, H.Y.T.. The graphic design studio’s clients revolve around the big names of Tate Modern, Transport for London and Channel Four.

The studio’s aim for their work output is considered to be stylistic choice of Slade’s enjoyment:

“bold, striking, often conceptual graphics and illustrations.“

This aim is evident with the recent works for club night Vesuvio at The Social, run by Heavenly Recordings, a London bar.

The recent works range from posters, flyers, GIFs and stickers, which are all designed and rendered with bright, bold contrasting colours, along with strong use of typography. Vitality is key with these series of works, as utilising a primary colour palette, each of the different works replicates, or even emulates how the feeling and visuals of a club night is like.

Futher works have been included with this series, as H.Y.T. has just opened an exhibition of its own works at The Social, called Pass The Hot Sauce.

The visual feeling and mood of these series of works are contemporary and trendy, and especially how the works are for a night club, this certainly conveys that to the viewer/audience. The works contain simple compositions, simple shapes and lines, which all work towards that feeling of a club night emulation.

What I can take from these works as inspiration for my own work is the strong use of colour, shape and typograhy. These elemements work great together, so taking this into my own work, I will be able to design and create visually and emotionally engaging pieces of design work.

L’Officiel magazine recieves new look from Ill-Studio

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Parisian multidisciplinary studio, Ill-Studio has worked with the renowned fashion magazine L’Officiel de la couture et de la mode de Paris, or more commonly known as L’Officiel. The Parisian studio took over the creative and art direction for the fashion magazine. With Ill-Studio in charge with the creative and art direction, there first issue was released in October, also marking the fashion magazine’s 95th anniversary issue. As well as marking as the first issue released from the Parisian studio, it was also accompanied with an exhibition at the VNH Gallery, in Paris.

Ill-Studio worked on a three cover page magazine on their debut, consisting of three fashion icons: Lou Doillon, Iris Apfel and Damaris Goddrie. They were shot on a Samsung Galaxy wearing Fendi against a featureless studio backdrop. Then the images were simply boxed out with an off-kilter rectangle, and framed with thick borders in three pastel-like colours of postbox red, tangerine and violet.

The typeface used on the cover pages feels and looks traditional to a fashion magazine, yet a contemporary feel to it simutaenously. The use of the serif type creates that traditional feeling, as the layout of the image, frame and colour provides the contemporary feel. The layout of the image, frame, colour and type is simple, easy to understand and effective. It is not overloading with unnecessary information, pretty much straight to the point of the magazine.

Moving onto the double page spreads, the layout is minimal, direct and traditional. The use of type gives the impression of a traditional feel, whilst the image placements gives the spreads the minimal, yet contemporary feel.

What I can take from Ill-Studio’s creative and art direction work as inspiration for my own work is the layout and cover page design. Both designs are strong and work well with the fashion magazine’s content. This can be applied to a current project of designing a fashion magazine with Comic Sans as the font.

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Tokyo-based designer, Okuyama Taiki has created these experimental, unusual posters, that play with typography, shape and colour. His latest works are available on his blogging site, Nochigo Source, which users are able to download Taiki’s poster work, and edit themselves in their native file formats, .psd and/or .ai. This makes Taiki encourage users to “play freely” with his latest works.

The posters themselves are playful and abstract, covering a minds thought of being creative.

“This pick’n’mix attitude is mimicked in Okuyama’s work with his sporadic use of abstract icons with the odd flash of type that come together to make odd graphic illustrations.“

What I can take from this as inspiration for my own work is the experimental and abstract use of typography, shape and colour. I could use this approach as an alternative, experimental and playful method, when creating posters for a campaign or brief. As well as the still posters, I could also play with the interactivity side, such as the moving image posters that Taiki has produced. This creates and reveals more information, which can be an advantage.

Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra receives rebrand from The Partners

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Working in there New York office, design agency The Partners, has rebranded Brooklyn’s symphony orchestra’s logo, stating that the new logo describes as “music made visual”. The new logo design is a complete overhaul compared to the 2003 logo, stripping the full name and Brooklyn Bridge silhouette, to concentrating on the intials of the name, but with some creative thinking behind the design.

“The design of each letter exemplifies an individual aspect of the orchestra, the agency explains. The blocky “B” is representative of Brooklyn, “robust, industrial and iconic”. The more delicate, serif “S” stands for great music, “elegant, dynamic and expressive”. The “O” is made up of a collection of dots, to symbolise the community of musicians, “convergent, complementary and collaborative”.”

The creative thinking behind the intial letters design is unique and strong, as taking representation for each intial gives the logo some character, and creating a sense of recognition. Each of the letter designs is effective and works well, as each letter does represent the reasoning behind it, from the design agency.

Although the design agency has rebranded Brooklyn’s symphony orchestra, the agency is also working on developing software too. The software is to visualise music interpretations in real time, and so the agency will be creating graphics to go along with that development, as well as the symphony orchestra’s digital platforms.

The design team says that the identity:

“brings dynamism and freshness to the presentation of music that transcends the time it was written“

“The Partners’ work has yielded an exciting, contemporary resource for us, which brings together a graphical logo, and a dynamic use of that logo which the BSO will use in its marketing.“

As well as the rebranded logo, other visuals within BSO has also received an overhaul of wonderful design. Such exmaples include the poster designs and marketing materials. In the poster designs, the use of shape and colour typically reflects on the logo design, symbolic and abstract. The combination of the coomposition, shape and colour, gives the poster design, and the BSO as a whole, a contemporary feel and look, even though the content of the orchestra, is primarily traditional and hundreds of years old. The colour choices and shapes gives the orchestra an opening for a new audience, as well as their exisiting one, as these visuals certainly attract a younger audience.

What I can take from this as inspiration from my own work is the creative thinking behind the logo design, as well as the strong use of shape and colour. Creating represtional symbols in the logo can be a strong effective solution, which I could incorporate into my own logo design projects. As well as the logo, the strong effective use of shape and colour can also be taken into consideration. The shape and colour used in BSO’s poster designs and marketing materials open up the subject and content of the orchestra in a clean and contemporary look and feel. I can use this forward thinking into my own poster and material designs.

Kodak returns to original vintage logo identity

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Reverting to its original symbol logo design, Kodak is the latest company to undergo a retro branding. 34 years of the original symbol, the Kodak “K” is back, originally designed by Peter J. Oestreich in 1971. In 2006, Kodak removed the symbol and simply display the company’s name in the logo design. However, Work-Order has designed the logo to be stacked capitalised type for the word Kodak inside the letterform.

“Capitalising the type is “the clearest departure from the past” says Work-Order, as Kodak has always used lower case. “The symmetry of the capital letterforms creates a molecular flexibility that allows the wordmark to be stacked,” says the design studio. “It is reminiscent of film perforations and street signage. It acts as a manufacturer’s stamp: the logo is the first read and the name is the supporting mark. When small, the name is removed leaving just the icon.”“

The same colour palette is used, identifying and acknowledging the company’s trademark colours. Also, the trademarked yellow and red is consistently and effectively utilised throughout all materials and media for the company, such as the packaging and identity design.

What I can take from this as inspiration for my own work is the strong use of colour and symbolic logo design. A strong symbol logo, with strong colours can turn a logo design into a legacy design, that in turn, could stay strong for a number of years, creating a trademark. Also, I could take the simplicity of the logo design in consideration, as it’s strong in shape, not overcomplicated.